City should find new firm to do audit of department

Mary Louise Schumacher

A Milwaukee County audit last year said $5.3 million needs to be spent on repairs at the War Memorial Center.

Milwaukee Ald. Joe Davis walked out of a Public Safety Committee hearing Thursday, saying he didn't want to hear testimony from a consultant picked by the Fire and Police commission to audit the Milwaukee Police Department's crime statistics. Journal Sentinel reporting has showed those stats to be seriously flawed, offering a false picture of crime in the city, although those numbers do not reflect on the department's investigation and enforcement efforts.

Without condoning his action, we share his and other aldermen's concerns regarding the selection of PRI Management Group to do the audit. The company has publicly praised the department and Police Chief Edward Flynn and been critical of the Journal Sentinel reports. That raises questions about the company's ability to conduct an impartial audit, questions that are not assuaged by the company founder's claim that "there is no connection" between his praise of Flynn and the company's ability to be impartial. Like Davis, we, too, would like to see an independent audit from someone less intent on making nice with the department.

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The director of the Milwaukee Art Museum struck the right tone Thursday when he vowed that a proposal for the museum to take over management of Milwaukee County War Memorial Center grounds would not go forward without the support of veterans.

"We will not do this if it does not meet with veterans' approval," Dan Keegan said at a public presentation on the plan. "The War Memorial is your place," Keegan told veterans in the audience. It is, and veterans have to buy into any proposal to change management control.

We hope they do. Giving control of the building - which houses the art museum's collection - to the museum strikes us as the best way to deal with the building's maintenance and renovation issues, which are costly and serious. And as long as the veterans are guaranteed use of the building for their activities in perpetuity, we don't see a problem.

A county audit last year said $5.3 million needs to be spent to fix leaks, crumbling outdoor staircases and other problems at the War Memorial Center. The audit suggested a change in management, saying building leaks threaten the museum's art collection.

The County Board last May called for the two sides to hash out a plan, after the art museum proposed a $15 million renovation project and takeover of the two buildings that make up the center. We still think everyone wins under that proposal.

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This is exactly why it was important to develop the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Innovation Campus on the County Grounds in Wauwatosa. GE Healthcare announced this week it is committing more than $3 million to the university to create a new center aimed at building a cluster of medical imaging software developers and researchers.

The center will help GE Healthcare provide continuing education for its employees, develop a talent pipeline of software professionals and foster the growth of computational imaging research, said Bill Berezowitz, vice president and general manager of imaging subsystems.

And UWM students who take some of the new classes will have opportunities for internships and possible jobs with GE Healthcare, according to UWM Chancellor Mike Lovell. The skills they develop also will be useful at a range of potential employers, he added.

Certainly, the partnership may have been created even without the UWM move to the County Grounds. But there's no question that the move will make it easier for both students and the company to interact and easier for the university and the company to foster the synergy needed between academia and the private sector to grow more jobs in Wisconsin.

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No, Mr. Grothman, wind energy is not tearing apart the state, and in fact, most of the state's utilities are well-positioned to meet the state's renewable standard requirement in 2015. Increasing the use of renewable energy in Wisconsin is needed to reduce the state's reliance on fossil fuels and to thus meet the challenges posed by climate change. The state needs more wind farms, solar panels and other renewable sources - for energy reasons and for the jobs these industries can produce.

But Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) wants to take the state backward, perhaps largely because he's heard from constituents upset over a proposed small wind farm in his district. He said he will introduce legislation to freeze the state's renewable energy portfolio at the 2012 level, despite the fact that most utilities are already prepared to meet the 2015 level of 10%. He said the 10% was a mistake and that wind farm proposals tear "at the fabric of Wisconsin communities."

Grothman has a penchant for the overdramatic, but he's wrong on this. Where has he been? Has he missed the wind farms that have been going up all around the state? All he needs to do is take a trip from West Bend to Fond du Lac on Highway 45 to get an eyeful. They don't despoil the landscape. and although there are some complaints about noise and shadow flicker, the turbines don't appear to have caused major problems for most neighbors. And they've certainly enhanced the state's energy portfolio.

Given the success of these efforts, the rising concerns over climate change and the potential jobs that are at stake, Grothman should pull back on his threat to take Wisconsin backward.

On, Wisconsin is produced each week by the Journal Sentinel's Editorial Board.